In order to remain competitive in the modern commerce system, many businesses remain constantly vigilant of evolving consumer demands, and strive to provide customers with the high quality products and services that they desire. To that end, many businesses employ contact centers that include automated systems and representatives of the business to process transactions and/or service the needs of their customers. Such contact centers may utilize a number of communication channels to engage customers, such as telephone, email, live web chat, and the like.
In order to facilitate providing high quality products and services to clients while remaining competitive and profitable, businesses may wish to collect information about customers' interactions with the business. For example, businesses may wish to monitor the quality of service provided by employees, whether customers' complaints are resolved, the type of interactions between employees and customers, customer profile information, customer demand for or satisfaction with certain products or services, and the like. In the context of a contact center, such information may be relatively easy to collect for subsequent analysis, because an interaction between a customer and the contact center can be recorded, and information about the interaction can be stored electronically. In the context of a brick-and-mortar business operation, however, such information may be difficult to track or record, which may reduce the effectiveness of service provided to customers visiting a business' physical branch locations.
Additionally, in the context of a contact center, the quality of service to a customer communicating with agents in the contact center may depend on many factors such as the agents' skill level, but also the agents' ability to access relevant information about the customer during a communication session, and agents' ability to quickly and efficiently engage in communications or interactions with customers. In certain circumstances, however, qualified agents may not be in close physical proximity to a work station or particular communication device, or agents may not have access to certain mediums or channels of communication, depending on their activities or physical location during the day. Such variability in agents' access to different communication mechanisms may complicate routing decisions and may reduce the quality of service perceived by customers.
The above information discussed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background of the described technology and therefore it may contain information that does not constitute prior art that is already known to a person having ordinary skill in the art.